Ventura asks Marcelo to be “discreet and cautious” and wants an audience in Belem

This Wednesday, the leader of Chega said that the President of the Republic should take a position of “restraint and caution” regarding the proposal for a referendum on immigration, and announced that he had asked him to hold hearings to resolve the issue.

“As the body called upon to take the final decision on this issue, but which has not yet received the referendum proposal submitted to the Assembly of the Republic, it must have a great duty of restraint and caution in relation to this same undertaking,” he said.

André Ventura responded at a press conference at the party’s headquarters to the President of the Republic’s words about Chega’s proposal, who warned of the difference that exists between the reality of immigration and the narratives that are built about it.

The Chega leader said he had asked the president of the republic for an audience “as a matter of urgency” to “present, discuss and raise awareness.” [para] the importance of a referendum on this issue” and to explain to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa that “the demand for a referendum is neither a persecution, nor a narrative, nor a perception.”

“Chega does not want the immigration referendum to be about representations or narratives. Chega wants the immigration referendum, like what is happening in other European countries, to question what kind of immigration policy we want in the future,” Ventura said.

President Chegui said the issue was not “a political joke, it is a structural issue for the future on which the Portuguese should have the right to comment.”

André Ventura noted that the questions he wants to ask the Portuguese population in this referendum, whose proposal has not yet been submitted to the Assembly of the Republic, are: “Do you agree that there is an annual determination of the maximum limits for granting residence permits to foreign citizens?” and “Do you agree that Portugal will implement an annual revised system of immigration quotas, oriented in accordance with the country’s global economic interests and the needs of the labor market?”

The Chegi leader said the two questions “do not require an answer, they are questions that the Portuguese are not inclined to ask whether they want to continue a completely open immigration policy or whether they want controls.”

According to the provisions of the Constitution, “citizen voters registered in the national territory may be called upon to express their opinion directly, on a mandatory basis, through a referendum, by decision of the President of the Republic, on the proposal of the Assembly of the Republic or the Government on issues within their respective competences, in the cases and under the conditions provided for by the Constitution and the law.”